Spinal implants are intended to treat degenerative disc disease (DDD) or other disc injuries. Spinal fusion treatment is a widely used treatment to alleviate pain, but limits range of motion and mobility for a patient. Total disc replacement is another treatment for disc degenerative disease that aims to preserve motion and limit complications related to spinal fusion such as adjacent level wear and disc degeneration. Total disc replacement is an effective solution for degenerative disc disease and gaining interest due to increasing prevalence of neck pain, lower back pain, and pain in general. Thus, there is a need for functional improvement. For an example, without limitations, there is a need for total disc replacement spinal implants that reduce wear due to metal to metal sliding and corrosive surfaces, increase cushioning, improve shock absorption, reduce wear debris of metal, and maintain spinal motion range.
The present invention solves these problems by providing a treatment solution that reduces degeneration due to metal wear because of no sliding between metal plates, increases cushioning with effective inner core design features, and uses special polymeric and elastomeric materials having varying hardness and physical properties such as silicone or liquid silicon rubber that also provides shock absorption, and maintains range of motion due to effective outer core design, its features, and choice of materials. All components in the assembly are designed such that it can effectively resist compression forces, shear-compression forces, and torsion forces.
Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Additional advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the detailed description of the invention section. Further benefits and advantages of the embodiments of the invention will become apparent from consideration of the following detailed description given with reference to the accompanying drawings, which specify and show preferred embodiments of the present invention.